Responsibility

At the core of the cult of churchianity is the concept that men are to be the head and to take responsibility for their wives.

I would assert this is true if a wife is willing to submit and abide by the husband’s decision. Most men learn to take responsibility for their decision making as they grow up.

Masculinity

I’ve been accused before on this site of saying something similar to the lines of “manning up” in regard to women which is not the case.

I believe manning up is good in the context of being the man of God that He wants us to be. He wants us to be His witnesses and make disciples of all nations. I can do that more effectively when I can speak well, lead, workout, have good nutrition, etc. If I don’t have self control, give into lust, pride, envy, etc then I am not going to be an effective witness.

However, I believe that “man up” is never good in the context of women. This is because a wife is not promised to men from God.

On the other hand, for those that do acquire what is good then they must accept the responsibilities of being a husband as outlined in the Bible as I covered in Discerning the mission.

Discerning the mission is easily abused though in regard what a husband is responsible for and what he is not. So this is the topic of contention of the rest of this post.

Understanding responsibility

The difference is found in two distinct places:

• Christian men who are unwilling to take stewardship / personal responsibility for their lives refuse to believe in free will.

They want to continue believing the Churchianity/feminist half truths that “God loves them for who they are.” Or that they should “just be themselves.” Or considering and honoring feelings and the admiration of men over God.

It’s true that we have God’s love, BUT when you accept his love and grace He also calls us to take off the old self and put on the new self as new creations in Him. What is “taking off” and “putting on” but faith to do what is right in Spirit and in Truth. It is faith and faith is action by the transforming power of the Spirit.

• Taking responsibility for what is not your responsibility.

This is the big one most men, especially most husbands don’t understand. And it is also one of the issues with Churchian marriage counseling today.

God does not take responsibility for our sins when we choose to disobey Him. It would be even foolish of us to consider that He would do that. That’s why He gave us free will, so we would have the ability to choose Him or not. When we exercise a choice to disobey Him, we walk out from under the covering of the blood of Jesus and need to repent for our sin.

One of the foremost examples is spoiled rich kids. Rich kids that are not disciplined learn to be rebellious and cause trouble and are maladjusted. When they get in trouble with the law, their parents can cover over their sins with money. However, these children learn from the sparing of the rod that there are essentially no consequences for their actions. They never learn what responsibility is.

Likewise, if a wife decides not to submit to her husband, then it is not the husband’s responsibility for any of the decisions she makes. Neither it is it his responsibility for any of the resulting consequences that result from her actions. If she creates a mess, she should clean it up herself.

This runs contrary to some of the typical churchian counseling advice that a husband being the head or leading and taking responsibility for her (and by proxy her actions) is the right thing to do. It is exactly the wrong thing to do. Denying free will to women when God has created women also in His image is one of the worst things you can do.

Most men have the tendency to say when a women makes a mistake that it “wasn’t her fault” or “she’s just new to the process” or similar comments. However, this is coddling women like they don’t know what they are doing. Of course, they know what they are doing, even if they are new to the learning process. Men aren’t coddled when they make mistakes and neither should women.

If you’re coddled, then you won’t learn from your mistakes.

The blame game

This is exactly why I am fond of using the teasing statements “well, whose fault was that?” or “hah, look what you did” or similar types of lines with women because it makes them consider the repercussions of their actions. I don’t allow them to foist responsibility for their actions on to me nor will I clean up their mess. And they will respect you for that because you do not let them walk all over you.

The same thing works with men, although we will much more readily call each other out right away on our BS.

Fostering a sense of responsibility in both men and women is not “mean” or “not nice” or “being a jerk” as I’ve been called many times in the past year especially by some Christian women. It is teaching them to be responsibile for their actions. It is teaching them about free will and consequences so they can make better choices in the future.

In the same way, if a woman or wife makes a decision that goes against what you have said then let them figure it out on their own and explore the consequences of their actions on their own.

The weight of headship and leadership

Recently, I was put in charge of tasks of delegating different responsibilities to a larger group of women with a few men. Women like to talk a good game or mock complain of course. However, the best way to quell this line of thought is to bring up the choice of managing the project themselves. It typically ends up looking like this:

Her: Hey, how come a man was put in charge and not a woman? [Power/Actions]
You: Oh, so you want to take responsibility for this project? Be my guest! [Responsibility/Consequences]
Her: Haha, I was just kidding. You can do it.

As has been espoused many times before, women want to be in control but they tend not to like to have the responsibility that comes from being in control.

If women want to be rebellious against what you have to say whether you’re single or married then make them aware of what will happen. It is love to tell them the truth just as Jesus did to us about loving Him and obeying His commands or loving the world.

A man/husband should not be there to help women with their actions that are not under his responsibilities and neither should a man/husband assist them in the resulting consequences.